POLITICAL SCIENCE.
several purposes. This difficulty, however, resembles those
which we meet in regard to "many other constitutions of
states. From one point of view they seem to belong to one
form, from another to another. Especially do mixed govern-
ments call up such questions.
Both these forms have figured in history, and will need to
be looked at in their workings in particular cases, if we would
discover their tendencies, advantages, and defects. It is the
second form, however, on which we shall bestow most atten-
tion, partly because it is the form of government in the Uni-
ted States, and partly because it is something of a novelty
in the world, and has been supposed to meet satisfactorily
the wants of several modern political societies which are
composite in their structure.
With regard to federal governments, and especially to those
which constitute a state over states, we observe first that they
are essentially more complicated then any other kind of gov-
ernment, and have peculiar difficulties of their own from the
co-existence of states with a paramount state. Beinc^ an arti-
ficial construction formed by human thought to meet certain
difficulties, they generally have not the benefits of experience
that those states have which have grown up by successive
steps, which have set up new institutions to meet new wants
qf society, and which are the results of long and often un-
fortunate trials. It is certain, for instance, that if the framers
of the American constitution could have foreseen the im-
mense patronage of the president, with all the subserviency
and selfishness of parties which this power either creates or
strengthens, they would have anxiously inquired how these
great evils could be prevented, which now it is so difficult to
cure because every party wants the same means of promoting
its ends which others have had before it.
Again, the complication involves frequent mistakes, and is
hard to be seen through. ' How much power has been given
up and how much taken ? What is the meaning of the fed-
eral instrument of government when it limits the state power ?
Is it to be loosely or strictly interpreted ? Such questions